Challenging Authority Quotes

My life has consisted of challenging authority, which I was taught as a young girl. Life is only noise between two abysmal silences. Silence before birth, silence after death. ~ Isabel Allende

There are always risks in challenging excessive police power, but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

As women of the western world, we see our sisters in other lands being raped, maimed and even executed simply for trying to exercise the most basic freedoms, such as taking a bus alone or wearing a bright red sweater. And when we look at our own world, we see that it too still lacks equality for the sexes.
It's a terrible thing to go through one's entire lifetime not getting to do all the things we dream of doing just because others say we're not permitted to do them, and to know that they will hurt us if we try.
But far, far worse than that is when there's not a thing or a person outside that's stopping us from living exactly as we wish, but we stop ourselves; internally we do not give ourselves permission, simply because we're too scared of what will happen if we dare. ~ PatriciaV. Davis

Christians, indeed, have a special obligation not to forget how great and how inextinguishable the human proclivity for violence is, or how many victims it has claimed, for they worship a God who does not merely take the part of those victims, but who was himself one of them, murdered by the combined authority and moral prudence of the political, religious, and legal powers of human society. ~ David Bentley Hart

[God] speaks from heaven through the Bible, His written Word. This is why I use the phrase "the Bible says." I would not have the authority to say what I do in sermons unless it was based upon the Word of God. ~ Billy Graham

Confucius was not so much a philsopher as a proto-ideologist: what interested him was not metaphysical Truths but rather a harmonious social order within which individuals could lead happy and ethical lives. He was the first to outline clearly what one is tempted to call the elementary scene of ideology, its zero-level, which consists in asserting the (nameless) authority of some substantial Tradition. ~ Slavoj Zizek

In the early years of the Roaring Twenties, American women not only won the right to vote but they also earned headlines along side their male counterparts during the Golden Age of American sports. Michael Bohn shares an engaging story of how two sports heroines, tennis player Helen Wills and swimmer Gertrude Ederle, helped embolden women to seek self-fulfillment by challenging the status quo. ~ Donna De Varona

The boss depends on authority; the leader on goodwill. ~ Harry Gordon Selfridge

The National Intelligence Director needs the authority to do the job we are asking him to do. That means power over the intelligence budget. And to be effective, to be allowed to do his or her job, they must have authority over the budget. ~ Leonard Boswell

leadership is rooted not in power and authority, but in service and wisdom ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Consciously or unconsciously, the reader is dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is ... If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority. ~ William Strunk Jr.

We need to stop the erosion of parental authority. ~ Sonny Landham

Acting is a sport - especially working with Mark Rylance. There is competition involved. I have to be muscular, challenging, get audiences on side. It's extraordinary how Globe audiences join in - it's like competing at an event - I love it. ~ Samuel Barnett

All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates. ~ Frank Chodorov

Many roads open pathways to authenticity. For some it is disciplined practice, for others revelation, for others service. Regardless of how we get in touch with authenticity or how authenticity gets in touch with us, the engagement is ongoing and forever challenging. ~ Rob Terry

I only had to drop acid once to know that Timothy Leary was right about questioning authority.

Motorcycling is like life. There's nothing solid about it. Something not even the asphalt under your tires.

Time on a motorcycle is unlike time spent anywhere else. There are moments lost in the landscape, seconds devoted solely to balance, and long stretches spent spiraling inward. ~ Barbara Schoichet

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

They declare that it is unpatriotic and disruptive to question the workings of authority
but patriotic to institute harsh and regressive policies that benefit the wealthy, undermine social programs that serve the needs of the great majority, and subordinate a frightened population to increased state control. ~ Noam Chomsky

I can say, hands down, 'Annapolis' is the most challenging film I've ever taken on. ~ Tyrese Gibson

You can't stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it. ~ J.D. Salinger

Quality men are men under authority. Quality men listen and yield to the collective counsel of the wise and godly men around them. Whether your father was good or bad, loving or lecherous does not, in the end, give you license to do as you please. Our Daddy is God the Father and He expects that we will live in submission to His Word and His will for our lives. Quality men can hear the voice of their own flesh demanding satisfaction, calling out for privilege and private pleasure. They hear the voice of temptation just as worthless men do, but they say NO! In God's strength and for His glory, a quality man denies himself for a higher purpose and says yes to the Lord. ~ James MacDonald

Every time you change your orders without obvious reason, you weaken your authority. ~ Napoleon Hill

Why that would be like challenging Bing Crosby to a singing contest,wouldn't it ~ Ben Hogan

When Holy Church occasionally hinted that she still considered her authority to be supreme over all nations and superior to the authority of states, men in these times tended to snicker. ~ Walter M. Miller Jr.

The Bible warns [parents] against extremes in dealing with our adult children. It tells us to avoid trying to control [them] once they become adults. When children become independent, a major transition takes place: They are no longer under our authority. ~ Billy Graham

Twenty years earlier, he had shaped the faction opposed to Andrew Jackson into a political party. Its members became known as Whigs because just as the Whigs of England had objected to the unchecked power of the throne, the American Whigs resisted "King Andrew's" excessive assumption of authority. Abraham ~ David S. Heidler

Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence. ~ Alexander Hamilton

If the road is easy, it's probably easy because it's not a road and you're not on it. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Our adversaries [ the Confederate States of America ] have adopted some declarations of independence in which, unlike the good old one penned by Jefferson, they omit the words "all men are created equal." Why? They have adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit "We, the People," and substitute "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States." Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view, the rights of men, and the authority of the people? ~ Abraham Lincoln

Indeed the Book of Job avowedly only answers mystery with mystery. Job is comforted with riddles; but he is comforted. Herein is indeed a type, in the sense of a prophecy, of things speaking with authority. For when he who doubts can only say, 'I do not understand,' it is true that he who knows can only reply or repeat 'You do not understand.' And under that rebuke there is always a sudden hope in the heart; and the sense of something that would be worth understanding. ~ G.K. Chesterton

There's always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It's how you lend some authority to what you write - you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know well, or a little. ~ Ian Anderson

Beyond the last inner tunic of my frail body, no one has authority over me. If I love too much this pitiful flesh, I have sold myself as a slave, for I have shown through pain what can be used to master me. ~ M.T Anderson

Our government should do everything it can to ensure the successful prosecution of those responsible for the murders of U.S. citizens abroad. It should provide resources as needed, and it should make it clear to the authorities in Belgrade that inaction does have repercussions on bilateral relations. ~ Tim Bishop

The New Testament, that is, was made by the Church; the Church was not made by the New Testament. That is why, speaking generally, Catholics differ from Protestants in the importance given to the authority of the Bible on the one hand, and to the authority of the Church on the other. Therefore, Catholics more than Protestants would tend to say that the community has authority over its normative literature. ~ James Carroll

We must expose to the light of public inquiry those forces which would destroy our country and our way of life. We should pay no attention to the recommendations of men who call the Constitution an eighteenth-century agrarian document-who apologize for capitalism and free enterprise. We should refuse to follow their siren song of increasingly concentrating the powers of government in the chief executive, of delegating American sovereign authority to non-American institutions of the United Nations and pretending that it will bring peace to the world by turning our armed forces over to a United Nations worldwide police force. (Title of Liberty, p. 16.) ~ Ezra Taft Benson

It took me a while to understand that when you don't like someone, nothing they can say or do will ever seem right. Something as harmless as giving a kid a cookie becomes something aggressive, a challenge to their authority. ~ Alexandra Bracken

But the arrogance of old age can cloak itself in the authority of past accomplishments, which can serve to confirm the belief that one's arrogance is justly held. It can shield a man from the realization that his beliefs have calcified, that he can no longer assess a situation accurately at first glance, that the world has changed around him and left him behind. Guarded from this knowledge, he remains content. ~ Dexter Palmer

Give us the grace - When the sacredness of life before birth is attacked, to stand up and proclaim that no one ever has the authority to destroy unborn life. ~ Pope John Paul II

The Iranian leaders describe the American government exactly the way American analysts describe the Iranian one, as an opaque, factionalized system with competing power centers, over which the president exercises very limited authority. ~ Ali Khamenei

The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing. ~ Michael Polanyi

The new Constitution, however, is brought to us by a Muse, ordained by the authority of the People, and established at the center of our common life. We can read these words as creating a national religion, one at which we still worship. ~ Garrett Epps

I'm a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it. You know who else was kind of "divisive" in terms of challenging the status quo and the powers-that-be of his day? Jesus Christ. ~ Ann Coulter

Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited. ~ Lord Acton

Dismally enough, some of us are insecure in such a way that we cannot bear the thought of the sovereignty of God, the thought of His Being as greater than ourselves; it moves us into feelings of insignificance. Nonetheless, allow me to personally and peacefully maintain that if I were to worship and obey anything, I would like it far greater than myself or any person or human system, preferably to a point where it, in all its majesty, makes me feel lost and even 'creatural' in my basic humanity. Only this God - He who is great beyond human measure, yet still considers His creation precious - I find to be more than worthy of praise; otherwise, I bow down and worship nothing. And if the thought of such a superior and almighty God were to indeed offend me, I would have to remember that it is because I am only as significant as the things which I am idolizing, things which are ultimately separating me, the creation, from my ultimate Creator. ~ Criss Jami

I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults. ~ Jack Kevorkian